Newsletter #009
My 3 Ideation Generators
Hello and welcome back!
Yes, yes, I can hear all 30 of you. Why is this beloved newsletter a day late? I have no excuse so moving on…
Inspiration can be tough. Creativity needs a kick-start at times.
Today I have for you my 3 online collections that I like to look over to help my creativity and ideation going.
Some of them may seem odd, but I feel like you have to venture into unfamiliar territory to get that fresh spark going.
1 - Funded Pitch Decks Collection
If a deck is good enough to convince people to invest millions, then it’s probably good enough for your next team meeting.
50 Folds has a collection of over 500 funded pitch decks at your disposal. It’s interesting to see how pitches were made for successful companies like DropBox and Uber(?), and also how successful pitches were made for questionable companies such as WeWork and Fyre (yes that fyre…the festival one).
I love seeing how they tell their own story and seeing how I can follow their story telling format to do it for my own.
2 - Gamemakers Toolkit
Yes, this is a YouTube channel, and yes it’s about gaming, but hear me out!
The guy who runs this channel, Mark Brown, is a brilliant story teller. He picks out a single game mechanic or feature and does an amazing job explaining how it works, the pros/cons, how players behave and respond to said mechanics…etc
Still not buying it? Fair.
Let’s take a single example. In this and this video Mark talks about accessibility. How can game developers make their titles more accessible to those with various disabilities?
Or this video that goes into the nuances about whether developer listen to a users negative feedback?
What I love about the videos mentioned above and many others is that they are applicable outside the world of game development. If you’re a product analyst or product manager, chances are the mechanics he dives into are directly relatable to your own work or product.
His method of story telling is also captivating and well paced. There’s never a moment where I feel bored or lost, even if the video is 30 mins long or more.
3 - Technical Terms Database
Communicating technical or complex ideas can be…well technical and complex!
Technically.dev is a great resource with a collection of simple to understand diagrams and explainers of technical software engineering concepts.
It’s interesting to look through how something complex can be boiled down, and it helps me think of new ways to present a difficult idea.
Here’s a nice one, what’s DevOps in a nutshell? This.
